iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

They have sweet ultrastructure in 2D, the reconstructed serial sections would be uh-may-zing.

Transmission electron micrograph of a mouse retina with a red blood cell insides of an endothelial cell inside of a pericyte

Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Awesome to see the location where Cassian Andor blastered Mon Mothma’s treacherous hover car driver in Valencia! #ISER2026

Outside of the science museum of the City of Arts and Science building València Spain, stand in for the Galactic Senate building in Andor

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Renewing my @arvoinfo.bsky.social membership and realizing I have now been at it for 25 years, not counting the previous decade of training, and, I mean, how did this happen?😬

A screenshot of a webpage with a pulldown menu and "Late career 25+ years" highlighted

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Remembering the great Jerry Lutty, fantastic mentor to so many of us, pioneer in the study of the choroid, and warm and wonderful human being.

A photo of the great Jerry Lutty and three boxes of donuts to celebrate his birthday

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 14/12/2025

Retina folks, I had this baked potato and... I don't know... it reminds me of something

Baked potato split into quarters and suspiciously resembling a dissected eyeball

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

I was born around the time of the release of the Sgt. Pepper's album. Then about 30 years ago my brother bought me this cap celebrating the 1967 NHL expansion (including my hometown St Louis Blues!) and with my birth year. Now suddenly this hat has found its moment in the Gen alpha Zeitgeist.

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 16/08/2025

So the lab now has 7 big freezers (mostly tissue storage). When I had 4 they were named after the Beatles, but once I got past 4 I named them after kaiju in the Godzillaverse - Godzilla (obvs), Rodan, Mothra, etc. Well we got a new small one which we named Minilla and he is so disturbing.

Door of a -80C freezer with a placard labeled Minilla, the son of Godzilla from the Toho Godzilla universe, and with a picture of the same. He is pretty strange

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

Hang in there! This is fibrin (maybe?) on red blood cells of human choroid, looks weird to me

scanning EM of red blood cells with thin spiderweb-like covering due to maybe fibrin?

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

Very cool! I thought for sure that image on the right was a bantha though

Toy bantha with Tusken raider riding atop it

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

That's so great! Seeing the one in Berlin was kind of a religious experience for me; I had seen its likeness in Golden dinosaur books older than me since I was a little kid!

Ur example of the Archaeopteryx in the Berlin museum of Natural History

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

You know it's serious when I have to put this sign on the door

Sign on office door that says Doing tech support for Mom, stay away

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Haven't used it much on cells, mostly on tissue similar to this protocol: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... We stain 30 minutes, not empirically determined to be best but it works well with our counterstain. Here's a mouse retina at low power--guess which part we were imaging at higher mag?

Blue fluorescent image of a mouse retina stained with filipin (cholesterol stain) after bleaching showing a dark non-fluorescent center

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

That rotating student who said I send too many emails may have had a point...

screenshot of an email program showing 100,474 emails have been sent by the account

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

Once again wishing everyone a #DAPIValentinesDay with a #FluorescenceFridat double whammy. Hoping for everyone to have peace, stability, happiness, safety and love.

Cell nucleus that is shaped like a heart labeled with a fluorescent DNA stain

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

…There’s a picture of a puppy and, so help me, the word PUPPY is there in all caps. None of them is filtered because it’s a headline about puppies. Dang, here’s a picture of puppies and there’s no alt text that might filter it. What's going on? Anyway I’m not really talking about puppies.

Smiling dog with his tongue sticking out

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

…But then people I follow continually post news article clippings about puppies. I don’t follow them because of their puppy content, but I can’t mute everybody. Why am I seeing this puppy stuff?

Dog lying on couch with his tongue hanging out

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Hey wait, what is this puppy doing on my feed? Oh, I should have muted #doggos! Done! Also better mute #canines and #canis to be safe. I might miss some astronomy post about Sirius but it will at least help me not see all the puppy content…

Photo of a black and white dog looking at the camera

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

The mute feature here is great but people are really good at getting around it. I hope they don’t mean to. Say I don’t want to any see pictures or articles about puppies. Like any at all, I am beyond puppied out. I can’t take them anymore. I mute #puppies, #dogs, #pups. Works pretty well! But…

Photo of a black and white dog looking at camera

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

I am batting 1.000 in writing the correct year so far!

picture of a notebook and pen with the date 1-2-25 written in the top right corner

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

There was a loose mouse in the lab (not ours!). Lab folks posted this wanted poster.

Photograph of a puppet mouse with sunglasses sitting in a beach chair and drinking a fancy cocktail. Phot has the caption "Have you seen this mouse?"

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

I had never heard of this before but I looked it up and apparently there are a lot of rules governing the wearing of shackets that affect us as we age

web search result about whether a person over 40 years old can wear a "shacket" and apparently it is not clear cut as according to the authors older individuals wearing a shacket have to take additional care in its proper display

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

Thanks for a wonderful visit Jesse, Ruchira, Michael, Sharon et al., you guys do amazing work!

Group of vision scientists at a fancy restaurant

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

If we're keeping it to the neurosensory retina, I too like the Muller cell

Fluorescent tissue section of human retina showing the cable like cytoskeleton of human Muller glial cells

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

OK, for #FluorescenceFriday here's a stereo pair (looks spiffy if you can Magic Eye it) of cone photoreceptor cells labeled with PNA (green) and an Ab directed against smooth muscle actin (red). If anybody can explain that one to me please do!

Fluorescence micrograph of the human retina showing cone photoreceptor cells

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 05/11/2024

This is Ozwald J Puppington III, Esq. He is a very good boy and this is what he looks like after a walk in the rain.

Photo of a black and white Pekingese shih-tzu bichon mix looking up in all his fuzzy glory

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 30/10/2024

Retirement party for our beloved custodian who has been SO good to us and is moving on to new adventures. Thanks for everything, Al, we love you!

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 30/10/2024

Cone pedicles should look like little upside down pyramids IMO. This is anti red/green cone opsin (red) and anti-rhodopsin (green)

Fluorescent microscopic image of rods and cones showing club like cone pedicles (synaptic terminals)in the outer plexiform layer of the human retina

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 28/10/2024

Man, these endothelial cells have some XXL mitochondria. Just in time for #MicroscopyMonday and/or #MitochondriaMonday

Transmission electron micrograph of a blood vessel wall with lumen on the top and extracellular matrix on the bottom, and in the center an endothelial cell with large mitochondria

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 25/10/2024

Somebody’s happy that ISER is over for another year

Pekingese Shu Tsu mix being petted by his loving human

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 25/10/2024

Had a great #ISER2024 and got to see a few sites of lovely Buenos Aires with mi amigo @stemcellseh.bsky.social

Two dudes standing in front of the Obelisco de Buenos Aires

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 24/10/2024

Can anyone identify this daring bird that showed such initiative in their search for a morsel at #ISER2024 in Buenos Aires? I don’t think they have this kind where I’m from.

A gray backed bird with a white breast and white eyeline

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 22/10/2024

So excited for long time dear friend and colleague Dr Abe Clark to receive the Ernst Báráni Prize for his amazing work in #glaucoma at #ISER2024 !

A speaker standing at a podium receiving an award

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 21/10/2024

Fantastic #ISER2024 talk by the one and only @stemcellseh.bsky.social ! Organoids, genome editing, donor eyes and a ingle cell RNA-seq to understand and treat inherited retinal degenerative diseases

Man standing behind platform at scientific session on using stem cells to study and treat inherited retinal disease

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 20/10/2024

Exit row leg room is amazing, only one small problem

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 19/10/2024

This is a good idea for the millions of folks who have trouble with knowing whether they are in D or F

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 18/10/2024

This guy would totally bury my passport in the yard if he had the opportunity

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 16/10/2024

Early voting started today in Iowa! I dunno, I have a good feeling about this one!

The author with his I voted sticker, colorful flowers with a goldfinch

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 15/10/2024

If you ask the chatbot if it's an AI chatbot, does it have to tell you (like an undercover cop)?

Scene from Breaking Bad in which meth dealer Brandon Mayhew (Badger) sits on a bench with an undercover cop

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 02/10/2024

I'm gonna miss this little guy! One of my very first pieces of lab equipment, this centrifuge has been with me since I snarfed it from a lab that was closing ca. 2002, when it was already pretty old. Thank you for all the cells you have precipitated!

Old beloved swinging bucket centrifuge before it gets hauled away

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 13/09/2024

Looks like either a retina or a s'more!

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Rob Mullins (he/him) @choroidlab.bsky.social · 11/09/2024

Rarely does a captcha crack me up but this one really made me think of ....

captcha anti-robot device with pictures of motorcycles to select

Alien from I think you should leave after he has observed all manner of wheeled vehicles, all of which he considered "motorcycles", informing his crewmates of how awesome the earth is

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